Keith has lied repeatedly to me in writing. However, he produced what
I was looking for. I've told him that I'm grateful for that.

But I don't think that Corporate Security Investigations
originally planned to do any work on my behalf. The evidence
suggests that Keith Krasnove was going to take my money, wait
until after the deadline for a complaint to my bank had passed, and
laugh all the way to his own bank.

Corporate Security Investigations: Preliminary assessment

Corporations with attorneys on staff might find it not
only safe, but profitable, to work with Keith Krasnove of Corporate
Security Investigations.

However, individuals might wish to proceed
cautiously with a P.I. who is likely to lie to them and to threaten
them for asking questions.

My sense is that Keith Krasnove sees individual,
non-corporate, clients as krill.
Corporations would be a different matter.

Corporate Security Investigations: Story

Keith Krasnove had promised to take a particular step on Dec 03, 2018.
This was over a month after I'd paid him. He didn't do so. When I
asked him about his non-performance the next day, he threatened me
without cause.

The threat was most likely, in and of itself, a prosecutable crime
due to its inclusion of a lie that Keith has never, to the best of
my knowledge, directly retracted.

As a note to attorneys, Keith *has* retracted the lie in written
statements which are worded as indirectly as possible.

So, barring abuse of process, which is of course common, Keith
would be at risk in legal proceedings.

Keith Krasnove never responded to polite inquiries that I
made on Dec 04, 2018 regarding his non-performance.

Instead, Keith said that that I'd made a chargeback
and that Corporate Security Investigations was going to sue me for
fraud as well as for other damages.

Keith's position now is that this was simply a mistake on
his part and the threat was justified by the mistake that he'd
made.

However, he declined to acknowledge the mistake or retract his
threat for a week. As of December 10, 2018, he still hadn't taken
either step in email. Only in text messages.

He seems determined to avoid acknowledging in writing that he
made the threat. But I'd say that text messages count, for
legal purposes, as written communications.

The relevant text messages will be posted here in due course.

On Dec 04, 2018, Corporate Security Investations suggested,
in writing, that I'd stolen $1,000 from the company. This wasn't even
close to the amount that would have been stolen if I *had* made
a chargeback.

$1,000 was 67% higher than the actual amount, $600, and Keith
Krasnove cited the 67% difference that he made up as the basis
for the part of his threat related to fraud.

I hadn't even threatened to make a chargeback. I'd spoken as politely
as possible to a company that had
lied to me in writing.

Surely Corporate Security Investigations is a firm that hardworking
individuals who need help can trust. Trust to threaten them for
asking questions.

On Dec 10, 2018, Keith Krasnove made an unexplained remark
— once again, in writing — that may have been innocuous or
a more serious threat.

This had to do with Krasnove's prosecution of
the gangster Wallace Rice in his (Krasnove's) previous career as, I think,
an Assistant District Attorney. Details will be added here.

But, even so, I've offered Krasnove additional work. I feel that, under
the right circumstances, he's able to
deliver the goods.

This is one of the
stranger situations to arise out of the Kiraly
Gag Order Cases.
I'll assemble the story here as time permits.

I've got to say that, once Keith got moving, he delivered the goods.

Keith inflates the significance of the reports side of his
business. Every licensed P.I. has access to data broker reports.
Some brokers are better and some are worse. Either way, the P.I.
usually can't take credit for what's in them.

Non-pro forma reports, out of the box thinking, and field work
are different matters. This is where you find out what a P.I.
can do.

As I've explained elsewhere, the
priority of most low-end P.I.s, except for retired police officers,
is to find a way to defraud you.

Police officers, the ones that I've talked to, seem very by the book.

But other P.I.s invent non-existent informants, press you to pay for
surveillance when the proposal is prima facie fraud, and come up with
questionable reasons about why investigations should be continued.

In Keith's case, I don't think that he was going to do any work
within the two months that I had to file a dispute with my bank.
Additionally, he broke promises, flat-out lied to me,
and threatened me at least once. Possibly twice.

But I was able to persuade him to actually do the work that I'd paid for.
I was rewarded for patience with results.

The stress was significant. I had to talk to my bank on multiple
days for hours at a time. I lost
nights of sleep.

But I ended up with a great photograph, an interesting story about
developments, and an extra data broker report that I didn't authorize
but found useful. More about that further down.

The photograph is on Haggis Hell, but it will be copied here in due
course.

Keith is wearing a coat; I don't know if it's an actual
trenchcoat, but it seems very P.I.-ish.

He's standing in a house
that my parents had abandoned. He's spread his arms in a bemused
gesture and has an exasperated expression on his face.

It says “P.I.”.

Keith implied that he did extra work as a form of apology for
his original threat. He seemed to be offering me the extra report
in this context as well.

But he didn't seem to want to spell anything
out. That's how I read it, anyway. I'll post the messages involved
here later.

To be honest, I just wanted him to talk to
me clearly and to explain what had happened. He wasn't willing to
do that, I think, due to fears related to legal liabilities.

You texted a reference to Wallace Rice, a gangster, on December 10,
2018. You declined to explain the context for the reference.

You were involved in the prosecution of Rice. The reference might
have been an implied boast related to your prowess in your previous
career. Or there might been have more to it; perhaps the admission
that you framed Rice and the implication that you could do so to
others.

I don't know, due to your refusal to explain.

I'm going to need to make public the fact that you made the reference
and possibly speak with others who were involved in the Rice case.
Including reporters and others who wrote about it. The latter might,
I think, be able to comment.

Beyond that, to reword a point that I made in text myself, take care
lest you come across as the Wallace Rice figure in the current story.

A possible offer to hire you for advisory work stands, but if such
work is agreed to, there isn't going to be any predatory contract.

1. This letter and/or communications in both directions, past,
present, and/or future are likely to be posted online, quoted,
or otherwise distributed or made use of.

This letter, in particular, is probably going to go onto my
weblog, Haggis Hell, today. This would be one way of calling
attention to the possible Elder Abuse issue that you've reported.

2. You could have been more clear regarding what your gut instincts
were telling you about the situation.

You haven't even seen fit — unless I've missed the response
— to answer my question regarding what you meant when you said
that “Jim Lawson” was “suspicious”. Did you mean that he was behaving
suspiciously or that he was suspicious of you?

3. “Jim Lawson” might have lied to you regarding his name. The rest
of his story might be true or false regardless.

The appropriate course of action might be as follows:

(3a) I could speak with local Realtors to determine whether or not the
house in question is listed as For Sale. If it is listed, I could
relay what you've said to the listing agent. The listing agent would
certainly be able to comment further.

(3b) If the house isn't listed as For Sale, I could discuss the matter
with the police, with the local equivalent of a county-level Elder Abuse
department, and/or with HOA management.

(3c) Come to think of it, I should send the story to Harvey Levenson.
He's a business associate, of some type, of Jim Kiraly's of 25 years'
standing, he's local, and he's even, apparently, the legal owner of
the couple's previous residence.

(3d) Tom and Ken Kiraly, the middle two of Jim's and Grace's four
surviving sons, will probably be interested as well.

To be clear, my brothers don't “like” the couple, but they'd know
about the move. If Jim is now in senile dementia — which you've
hinted that you know more about, but haven't elaborated on —
one of them might even be the person who is coordinating the sale.

Scott Kiraly, the youngest brother, isn't a factor. He might be
deceased due to morbid obesity. If he's living, he wouldn't be
involved in Jim's business affairs.

Jim would only consider, I think, trusting the middle two brothers,
though he did ask me, years ago, to take on some of the
responsibilities that Tom has now assumed.

4. You've suggested that I send you payment for additional work.
I have reservations about doing so until previous business is
concluded.

In particular, I need for you to do one of two things:

4a. One option is for you to voluntarily, and explicitly,
waive a recent $80 charge that I didn't authorize. Note: I'm
not saying that I wouldn't have authorized the charge; that
isn't the point.

You seem to have waived the charge twice
already, so I'm not sure why you'd object to this. The issue,
for me, is that I'd like to see the waiver stated more explicitly.

4b. Another option is for you to accept payment of $80. However,
prior to such payment, you'd need to acknowledge the following points:

(4b1) I haven't made a “chargeback” for “$1000”, or for any other
amount, on any transaction.

(4b2) I didn't explicitly authorize the $80 charge and payment will
not constitute acknowledgment of prior authorization, or of prior
or present agreement to any terms or conditions previously agreed
to in any other context.

(4b3) You're satisfied that I've met all commitments and/or obligations
of any type that I may, or may not, have to you, with the words
“commitments” and “obligations” to be interpreted in the broadest
possible sense.

If you press Reply, quote this letter, and add the words
“In connection with Part 4, so agreed” I'll authorize you
to set up a formal payment link or other mechanism to address
the $80. The commitment to the authorization is subject to
review of the contents of your letter and/or subsequent letters
from you as a whole.

5. As a point of information, I've discussed part (4b1) —
for roughly one hour — with an Operations Manager at the
relevant bank on my side.

The Tier 2, in this case, sent the matter to Compliance days ago
with escalated priority. The Tier 4 says that Compliance has already
approved the release of documentation to me.

I expect to be in possession of said documentation shortly.

My bank would only be able to see some of the past transactions that
you've engaged in as your clients use multiple financial institutions.

So, speculation to the effect that Corporate Security Investigations'
business model consists, in part, of fraud and that you may therefore
have an unusual number of chargebacks remains, for the moment, little
more than speculation.

But the Tier 4 has been kind enough to explain that a payment gateway
which you may have used extensively, Square, is coupled to a particular
financial institution, JC Morgan Chase Bank.

My bank could initiate communications with JC Morgan or I might be able
to do so myself. JC Morgan, in turn, might be able, due to terms and
conditions that Square had to have agreed to, to require Square to
take a look at your transaction history.

6. You, Keith Krasnove of Corporate Security Investigations, CA PI
20897, have made a point of touting, to me, your performance in the
current case.

However, in the process, you've been careful to avoid commenting on
the fact that you seem to have lied regarding your performance in
written statements made on December 4 and 5. Remember that verifiable
dates are involved.

This is in addition to a false statement that you made, in writing,
on December 4 regarding a “chargeback” and an associated threat
that you made to “sue” me, your client in good faith,
“for fraud besides the damages in the Agreement”.

Isn't this the sort of thing that might give pause to parties who
are assessing Corporate Security Investigations as a candidate for
their research needs?

People come to Corporate Security Investigations, State of California
P.I. 20897, seeking to find a way to make things right. In some cases,
their lives have been damaged by criminals, abusers, and the like.

The evidence suggests that you may make it a practice to steal from
these people and to use predatory contracts and your past experience
with legal cases to walk away smiling, their cash in your pocket.

There are other possible explanations for your actions on December 4.
However, none of the possible explanations reflect especially well on
you or are likely to boost your reputation. Am I correct or incorrect
about that?

On December 4, you used the words “making a big mistake”. I think
that perhaps you should pause and reflect on your own words.

7. I'd like to discuss the advisory work that you offered to do a
while back. But, if such work is done, there isn't going to be any
contract remotely resembling the one that you usually press hapless
and trusting clients to sign.